Infinite Variety - From Red and White to Mostly Red to Talavera

The American Folk Art Museum in New York currently has the quilt world oohing and aahing over their show "Infinite Variety:  Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts"

http://www.folkartmuseum.org/index.php?p=folk&id=7262





Not my quilt!





There are loads of pictures on the above site, flickr, facebook - all celebrating the uniqueness of the two color quilt. 

I've always loved a red and white house quilt, but then again, I like them in blue and white (which I've made and my kid hasn't hung up in his house yet!) too.  This show has my design juices wanting to make a red and white quilt - trouble is, which one?  I'd like to do a traditional quilt in red and white.

http://patsloan.typepad.com/pat_sloan_red_and_white/

If you go to Pat Sloan's blog, (click above), she is going to be doing a challenge later for red and white quilts.  Hmmm.... maybe that's the push I need?

Meanwhile, here is a picture of a quilt that started as a red and white.  I soon figured out you can't really do a two color bargello.  So I decided to use the color wheel instead, but still wanted a predominately red quilt.

Eula Lang of Quilting Bits n Pieces (click here) has now quilted this gem from the early 90s.  If I can, I'll get a close up of her quilting.  Every section is something different.
  I'm in the process of sewing the binding now.

 It's been a love-hate relationship with this quilt, but since I discovered that the colors go well with my talavera pottery collection, I'm in love again!



Talavera fruit bowl



Linda's tree skirt

This is the same pattern as the tree skirt below.  Linda likes peaches and burgundies.  This was machine pieced, hand quilted.

For My Husband

This is a picture from before quilting.  I'm binding this now, and will take another picture afterwards.  My friend, Eula Lang (Quilting Bits n Pieces in Eudora Kansas) quilted this - there are 4 eagles - one in each corner; the Air Force emblem in the center, feathered wreaths, and stippling throughout.  Absolutely stunning!!!!! 

Desert Quilting

Here in the sonoran desert it gets warm.  Okay, it gets hot.  Darn hot.  How do you quilt when it's hot?  You turn on the a/c!
We are too busy playing outdoors the other 3 seasons of the year.  Most of my quilting gets done during the summer months.  Right now I'm gearing up for hot weather.  I have quilts to bind, quilts to quilt...

I thought I'd show you a little of what's been happening in my quilt world.

It's just a snippet, and not a quilt, but I finished my daughter in law's afghan.  Try crocheting an afghan when it's 110 outside!  I do need a better picture of the afghan.  She picked out some gorgeous colors!

Of course the model (yes, asleep) is a downright cutie pie!

Long Time!

I hadn't realized how long it has been since I've blogged! I'll be adding the blogs I'm following, along with pictures of things I've been doing.

Granddaughter Quilt -

This is the quilt I made for our oldest granddaughter. She picked out most of the fabrics. It's hand embroidered, hand appliqued, machine pieced, hand quilted. She was able to follow it's making (since she moved to Georgia with her family) on her own blog - sadiequilt.blogspot.com.
So each of our four grandchildren have one hand quilted, and in most cases, hand pieced and/or appliqued and/or embroidered quilt from me.

Tree skirt, grandmother's flower garden

The grandmother's flower garden pictured here was made for my first grandson Joshua. Hand pieced, using 30s reproduction fabrics, and hand quilted. I'd love to make another one, and keep playing with designs.

The tree skirt is one of two - this one was made in traditional reds and greens for my son Erik and his family. Machine pieced and machine quilted, the quilting includes the names of the family (including Ethan), and of course the family dog, Scooter!)

Some miscellaneous pictures - prior to relandscaping.

For My Husband

Here's a Kokopelli I made for my husband. It's machine appliqued and quilted, and heavily embellished with beading and stones.

Grandchild Quilts



Here are some quilts I've made for our Grandchildren:

The kitty quilt is a reproduction of my son's baby quilt - this was made for our second grandson.

 The irish chain variation was created and made by me for our second granddaughter.

Ring Bearer pillow

This is a ring bearer pillow that I made for my niece's wedding. The work of 3 generations of women in our family is included in this pillow - my grandmother (her great-grandmother); my mother, her mother, and my own work.

Crazy Quilting

Here's some other pictures from the crazy quilt swap - some stuff I did on other pieces. The swap is over now and I'm looking forward to seeing mine soon. The spider web is just about the glitziest web I've ever done - dark translucent web with beads at the intersections, and a very sexy spider!

Applique swap

This is another swap I'm in - an applique swap. One person does an applique center, the next a pieced border, the third something else... etc till it's done. Deb's center block was a challenge - till I found a Kessler Concord fabric that looks like it was what she pulled her fabrics from! I love this! I'm really looking forward to seeing what it looks like completed.

Now a pillow

Here's a quilt block I made for Lillibet's garden - a Beth Ferrier Block of the Month that's going on this year
http://www.applewd.com/ This is the January block.

Vincent's Pizza!!

Well, it just doesn't get any better than this - The Steelers won the Superbowl! I ordered 2 large Vincent's pizzas flown in from Pittsburgh for the game - when I called they didn't batch an eyelash. You can't get it delivered in Pittsburgh, but you can get Vincent's pizza delivered to Arizona! Even the dogs liked it.

Crazy quilting

The next block was made by Kim. She decided her 'uncomfort zone' included blue and orange. Lillian took one look at that and decided that it called for a desert island, complete with palm tree and lazy ocean waves -with an underwater scene that included a seahorse!

I added a sunset, a beaded waterfall, and some shells to embellish a seam. This is going to be a great crazy quilt block!

I was really happy with the waterfall - and I've included a close up of it. I'll include what beads/threads I used later.

I wanted the shells to look as if they were 'settling' down at the bottom of the ocean. I learned to use a dremel drill - I didn't like the way they were drilled, so I redrilled them.

You can also see Lillian's remarkable reef!

Irish Setter crazy quilt

Recently I've rediscovered a love of crazy quilting and quilts. I'm participating in a 'Difficult Color' round robin.

The purpose was to challenge ourselves to think outside our color comfort zones. I chose to use browns, and since I'm in love with Irish Setters, the center of my block was an Irish Setter. You can see a picture here after the first round and Gemma had embellished it some.

I've decided to use this forum to publish pictures of quilts I make, quilts I particpate in making, quilts I like, etc. Also in here will be quilting (traditional and crazy), redwork, and other needlearts; websites that cater to needlearts, and general musings.